


Kill Your Double (But Keep Them Alive)

by orphan_account



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Hermann Gottlieb is Owen Harper, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:05:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Hermann Gottlieb came into existence sixteen years ago. He wasn't born then - he just stopped being Owen Harper. Of course, then Captain Jack Harkness had to come visit the Hong Kong Shatterdome. </p><p>Meanwhile, Newt's just trying to figure out what's up with Hermann while simultaneously attempting to save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revival

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I've only seen Pacific Rim once, and I haven't seen all of Torchwood, but this crossover got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. It takes place in the year 2025, starting on the day that Raleigh is brought back into the PPCD, and ignores the events of Miracle Day (from Torchwood). You shouldn't have to know any Torchwood to understand this fic - you'll figure it out with Newt as you go along, although some scenes might be a little bit confusing. Also, this chapter is a bit heavier on the Torchwood side of things than the others. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Trigger Warnings for this chapter: talk of attempted suicide, minor (past, off screen) character death, mentions of violence

Dr. Hermann Gottlieb was not in a very good mood. This particular statement on its own did not carry much weight, as everyone in the Hong Kong Shatterdome was likely to tell you that Dr. Hermann Gottlieb was _never_ in a good mood, but today he was considerably more unhappy than usual. This may or may not have had to do with the absolutely _repulsive_ Kaiju brain which was currently sitting just across the lab from him, tapping at the plexiglas with its slimy tentacles. He’d been doing his best to ignore it, focusing more on explaining the rationality of his Breech closing (or, rather, exploding) plan to Marshall Stacker Pentecost and Ranger Herc Hansen. 

But, like always, Dr. Geizler insisted on butting in with his own harebrained scheme, which was sure to get at least one person killed – probably Geizler himself, at that. 

“And this is the point at which he goes _completely_ crazy,” Hermann muttered to the other two men, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. 

“There is so much more to the Kaiju – ” the biologist continued, ignoring Hermann with an effortlessness that only came from years of practice. 

However, before he could get any further, he was interrupted rather abruptly by a man striding through the laboratory door. Hermann took one look at the newcomer and just about had a heart attack. The irony of the fact that the man who had just about given him a heart attack was also the only man who knew that he couldn’t actually have a heart attack was not lost on the mathematician. The man – tall, handsome, and charmingly persuasive in a way that somehow didn’t come off as if he was trying to sell you something (although he undoubtedly was) – didn’t seem to notice Hermann, though. 

“Captain Ianto Jones reporting for duty, Sir,” the man said, smiling only his second most charming smile as he offered his hand for Marshall Pentecost to shake. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I was told I needed your approval before wandering around the Shatterdome.”

He said the last bit with a gesture to the young PPDC officer standing patiently just inside the doorway. She gave Pentecost a respectful nod of acknowledgement, but her eyes darted quickly back to “Captain Jones,” as if she didn’t trust him to still be there, even if she’d only looked away for a moment. 

“Ah, yes,” Pentecost replied, grasping the other man’s hand and shaking it firmly, although his mouth was still fixed in a firm frown. “I received the notice of your transfer yesterday.”

“It’s hard to believe that Hong Kong’s the only PPDC base left,” the captain said, his smile turning less charming and a little bitterer. “But I figured I’d be of more use helping you guys out than building a stupid wall.” 

“I’m glad we agree,” Pentecost answered, what was almost a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

Again, Hermann resisted the urge to roll his eyes. _And there goes Marshall Pentecost: hook, line, and sinker._

Not that the mathematician could really blame him. He was no more immune to Jack Harkness’ charm than anyone else. 

(Well, okay – maybe he liked to think he was at least a little bit better than most. He’d only ended up in Jack’s bed twice, after all, which had to be some sort of record, considering how long they’d known each other.) 

“ – I’m afraid that Drs. Geizler and Gottlieb are all that’s left of our research division,” Pentecost continued, breaking Hermann out of his thoughts, only to find Jack staring at him as if he’d seen a ghost. 

Which, you know, he kind of had. It was not every day that you found out that a friend who you thought was dead was actually alive and working as a mathematician for the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. His knew clothing style and horrible haircut probably wasn’t helping anything. 

Jack’s eyes darted down to take in Hermann’s uncomfortably stiff leg and the cane clutched tightly in his hand. 

Oh. The leg was also a change. 

“Well, it’s good to know that the PPDC has such a dedicated team for its research division,” Jack said, his voice tight, but Hermann was probably the only person who’d be able to detect the irregularity. “Pleased to meet you.” 

Hermann blinked in surprise as Jack extended his hand out in greeting, as if the two of them were complete strangers. As if this was their first meeting – completely unlike their actual one, which had involved blood and aliens and Katie, his fiancé, dead on the operating table. Hermann forced a smile and went along with it. 

“Likewise,” Hermann responded, proud that his voice did not waver, despite the hurricane that was brewing in his stomach. 

Jack’s eyes lingered on the mathematician for a moment longer before darting back to focus on Pentecost and Hansen who were still listening to Dr. Geizler describe his kamikaze scheme. As soon as Jack was no longer looking at him, Hermann’s polite expression faded, his lips pursed in a tight, thin line. He studied Jack carefully, taking in every detail. His hair was still just as dark and thick as his had been a little over sixteen years ago, Hermann noticed idly, and there were no new lines on his face, nor wrinkles in his skin. He stood tall with the same military posture, and Hermann was willing to bet that if Jack had given them an actual smile, the man’s teeth would have appeared just as straight and glaringly white as always. Jack Harkness had not aged a day. 

Not that Hermann had, either. 

“ – the neural surge would be too much for a human,” Hansen said, drawing Hermann out of his thoughts and back to the conversation. 

The mathematician couldn’t help feeling a bit of vindictive happiness at Geizler’s sour expression as both Pentecost and Hansen solidly agreed that, as Hermann had said, Geizler’s plan was completely crazy. Of course, the other part of Hermann was tied up in some sort of uncomfortable, stomach twisting emotion at the frustration openly evident on Geizler’s face. 

“Gottlieb, I want your data on my desk, ASAP,” Pentecost continued, ignoring Dr. Geizler’s protests, turning to Hermann. 

“Yes, Sir,” Hermann replied with a small salute, which caused Jack to almost give him a visible double take. It was a little strange to finally have someone around who understood the sarcasm behind his obedience. 

“Uh – no! But his is so – ” Geizler stuttered, looking at Pentecost wide eyed and imploringly. “Guys! I mean – this is the most amazing thing in – !”

Hermann tried to block out his coworker’s pleas, brushing past him with another scathing remark about his status as a “Kaiju Groupie,” all the while feeling Jack’s gaze boring into the back of his head. 

“But it _is_ going to work, Hermann,” Geizler spat back, his own eyes also fixed on Hermann’s retreating back, “and I’ll tell you something else. Fortune favors the brave, dude.”

“If fortune favored the brave, then I wouldn’t be stuck in this god forsaken Shatterdome with this bum leg!” Hermann hissed, spinning around awkwardly, inhibited by said injury. 

His eyes met Jack’s for a second and a shiver ran through him. He felt like he had just shared an intimate secret with an unwitting audience, only to find out that his audience was a little bit more knowledgeable than he’d thought. He glared at Jack, silently challenging him to comment – to say anything that would give him (give _them_ ) away. Surprisingly, Jack looked away first. Hermann’s eyes slid back over to Geizler, taking in his colleague’s suddenly pale skin tone, a look of dumb shock on his face. Any other day, Hermann would be happy to have shut him up so effectively. 

But, of course, today’s circumstances were a little bit different. Hermann spun around again and walked out the door. He didn’t dare look back. 

\---

Newton Geizler had been having a remarkably good day. That is, until Pentecost and Hansen had shot down his brilliant plan that would surely save the world, and he’d made some stupid comment that Hermann completely overreacted to. He was totally right, though! Fortune _did_ favor the brave. It was just that, well, Newt had never really associated Hermann with the word “brave” before. He had a tendency to forget that Hermann wrote code for giant alien fighting robots for a living. (Well, if you could consider their meager salary a living.)

There was no way he was actually going to apologize to Hermann, though. He was just going to bring him some coffee and the last square of chocolate he had because… because. It was absolutely not an apology. He had, after all, nothing to apologize for. 

Newt tried to balance the two mugs of coffee and the chocolate he was carrying in such a way that he could actually scan his thumbprint to open the lab door. However, once he had everything sorted out so that he actually had one thumb mobile, he paused abruptly. The biologist scrunched his nose in concentration, listening closely for a moment before pressing his ear to the cold, metal – not entirely soundproof – door.

“Stop calling me that!” Hermann’s voice rang out, clear and as stubborn as always. 

“Why?” another voice demanded, a voice which allowed Newt to tentatively identify the other person as the new guy from earlier that morning. “I need to know why.”

“Because Owen Harper is _dead_ ,” Hermann spat, and Newt heard the distinct slam of Hermann hitting something with his cane. “He’s been dead for the past sixteen years. If you wanted him back, you should have contacted me sooner.” 

“How the hell was I supposed to contact you?” the other man – Jones? – replied, matching Hermann’s bitter tone. “I thought the whole point of this was that I didn’t know you were alive!” 

“I was being held in a Torchwood facility!” the mathematician yelled back, frustration evident in his tone. “Of course, if you weren’t too busy getting everyone else killed – !”

“Don’t you dare,” Jones hissed, his voice taunt with barely contained fury. “You have _no right_ – ”

“ _I_ have no right?” Hermann shouted, although he sounded a bit off, a bit choked up almost, to Newt’s ears. “They were my friends too, you know, and I don’t have many of those, you bastard! _Two months!_ I was out for only two months, but by the time I woke up, all of the people I cared about were either dead or gone!”

“What about Gwen?” Jones asked, his tone gravelly, but not quite as choked as Hermann’s. “Does she know about any of this, or did you only care about the sex?” 

“Gwen – ” the mathematician stuttered, and Newt could already imagine the bright pink spreading across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “Gwen might as well have disappeared the same way you did, what with her being pregnant and all. Do you really think that it would have been a good idea for me to turn up on her doorstep saying ‘Hello! Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually dead! Oh, and congratulations on getting pregnant – tell Rhys that I promise it’s not mine!’”

Newt nearly dropped one of the mugs of coffee that he was still balancing precariously, gaping, his eyes wide. He supposed the thought of the stuffy, parka wearing mathematician having sex wasn’t all that strange, but having an affair with a married woman? Now that was wired. 

“I – ” the other man started, cutting himself off abruptly before starting again. “I’m sorry, Owen. If I’d known, I would have stayed.”

Wait, _Owen?_ What?

“No you wouldn’t have,” Hermann replied, his tone soft, and surprisingly devoid of bitterness or judgment. “Logically, I understand that their deaths were not your fault. I just can’t…”

“Hey,” the captain said, his voice nearly inaudible. “Hey.”

Newt pulled his ear away from the door, a strange knot of emotion in his stomach. He bit his lip and blushed slightly, feeling guilty about eavesdropping on what was clearly a personal conversation. He fumbled with the coffee cups and chocolate again, scanning his right thumb clumsily. Newt let out a little huff of relief as the door slid open with a loud clank, hopefully alerting Hermann and his guest of the biologist’s presence. 

He strode into the room, plastering a large smile on his face and trying his best to look like he hadn’t just been spying on his colleague and Captain What’s-His-Face. However, if standing outside the door was awkward, walking into the lab was even more so. The grin slid off of Newt’s face as his gaze landed on the two men. Hermann had his back to the door, and Newt couldn’t see his face, as it was buried in the side of the other man’s neck. The captain – Jones – was holding onto the mathematician so tightly that Newt couldn’t help but wonder if he was secretly trying to suffocate Hermann. 

Jones had his chin rested comfortably on the top of Hermann’s head and one hand threaded through Hermann’s hair, his eyes closed as he breathed steadily. However, as soon as Newt took a step forwards, the man’s eyes snapped open, fixing Newt with a look that felt something like lazars boring holes all the way through Newt’s head. It was not a particularly pleasant feeling to say the least, but at least Jones released Hermann from his death grip. Hermann turned around, clearly confused about the sudden loss of contact, his expression turning a little sour as he laid eyes on Newt, making the biologist’s stomach tie itself in knots again. 

“Yeah,” Newt blurted out, his mouth running on autopilot as he thrust one now lukewarm mug of coffee in Hermann’s direction. “Uh. Coffee. For you. Er, Hermann.” 

His eyes darted back to Jones briefly, and he was surprised to find a contemplative and slightly smug look on the man’s face now instead of the glare of doom. (Which, actually, wasn’t really a glare. The guy just had really intense eyes, okay?) 

“Oh,” Hermann said, just as haltingly. “Thank you, Dr. Geizler.” 

“I’ll leave you two to it, then,” the captain announced, walking towards the door. “Saving the world, that is.” 

Jones clapped Newt on the shoulder as he brushed past the biologist on the way to the door, nearly causing Newt to jump out of his skin in surprise. The man gave him a lopsided grin and a wink practically dripping with innuendo, both of which caused Newt’s face to heat up in embarrassment. 

He decided to pretend he hadn’t noticed anything, instead walking over to Hermann and handing over the coffee, strategically slipping the chocolate into his hand, too, before heading back over to his Kaiju covered desk. Newt pulled up his laptop, opening word in order to start typing up his latest report, but nothing was coming to him. Normally his mind was a veritable zoo of Kaiju details, but at the moment all he could think about was Hermann and the charming new addition to the Hong Kong Shatterdome. Newt did his best to forget the slight wetness he’d noticed on Hermann’s cheeks as he’d pulled his face out of the crook of Jones’ neck. He tried to forget about how tiny the mathematician had looked encased in the larger man’s embrace. He wasn’t entirely successful. 

“So, you guys know each other?” Newt asked, going for casual, but probably sounding a little more gossipy than he’d like. 

“Pardon?” Hermann replied, looking over at Newt from his position at his chalkboard. 

“You and Captain What’s-His-Face,” Newt clarified, waving his hand in dismissal. 

“Ja-Jones?” the mathematician said, stumbling over the word in a way that set off all sorts of warning bells in Newt’s head. “No. I only met him today.” 

“Well, you guys were looking pretty comfy for two guys who just met,” Newt responded, a little more bite in his tone than he intended. “Not that I’m trying to shame you or anything, because I’d totally hit that too if I got the chance, dude.” 

Well, not actually. He’d totally hit that if he wasn’t already completely hung up on a grouchy mathematician who really had no right to look that good in rumpled cardigans and that stupid parka. 

“What? No! I’m not trying to – to _hit that_ ,” Hermann sputtered, turning as red as a lobster. “I – tripped.” 

Did he honestly think that Newt would believe that? Was that really the best lie he could come up with? “I tripped”? Come on. Despite how he limped around with that cane all the time, Newt had never actually seen Hermann trip. The biologist didn’t comment on it, though. If it was any other topic, he’d hound his coworker relentlessly, but for some reason bothering Hermann about this seemed… wrong. 

Newt clenched his teeth and decided not to pursue the subject any further. For now. 

\---

Hermann didn’t see Jack again until much later that night. The lab was empty except for the mathematician, Dr. Geizler having retreated to his quarters a couple of hours prior. The machinery in the lab hummed softly in the background as he continued to scribble over his extensive chalkboards. His hands were almost completely white from the chalk dust, coating them like thin gloves. He glanced at the clock. 01:32. Hermann kept on writing. 

“That parka is not a good look on you, Owen,” Jack’s teasing voice broke in suddenly, startling the mathematician slightly. 

“I’m cold,” Hermann replied shortly, but not unkindly, although he did not actually turn to look at Jack. “It’s like that stupid greatcoat of yours.” 

“Well, mine is considerably sexier. You know, I really can’t understand how you’re satisfying your sex addiction with this wardrobe,” Jack answered, eyeing Hermann’s ill fitting pants and chalk covered cardigan with a look of dubious caution. “And don’t even get me started on the hair. Also, I thought you couldn’t actually feel cold anymore.” 

“Look, let’s not talk about this here, shall we?” Hermann sighed, setting down his chalk and wiping his hands on his pants. “I don’t want anyone walking in on us again.” 

“You didn’t seem to mind when you and Gwen – ” Jack started, a cheeky smile on his face. 

“Oh, shut up,” the mathematician grumbled, glaring at Jack. “You know what I’m talking about.” 

Jack’s smile dimmed slightly, but there was still a certain fondness in his expression as he looked at Hermann. 

“So, your place or mine?” he asked, unable to withhold a comically suggestive eyebrow waggle and a crooked, saucy smile. 

“Mine,” Hermann replied, limping past Jack briskly, although he couldn’t help the way the corners of his mouth twitched upwards slightly in a vague semblance of a smile. 

\---

“So, how’s immortality been treating you?” Jack asked, shucking his jacket as he looked around Hermann’s surprisingly spacious room. 

The spaciousness of the room probably had something to do with the fact that the Shatterdome was equipped to house more than three times the number of personal that it was currently sheltering. His room was probably originally meant for some military higher up. Not that Hermann was complaining. 

“Like shit,” the mathematician replied after a moment, frowning at Jack as the other man made himself comfortable on Hermann’s bed, shooting him another one of those annoyingly cheeky smiles. 

“Oh, come now. It’s only been sixteen years,” Jack replied, his smile dimming somewhat. 

They lapsed into silence for a moment, neither one entirely sure what to say. Hermann’s eyes were boring a hole into the carpeted floor of his room, trying to ignore Jack’s gaze on him as he tried to process his thoughts and sort them into coherent ideas. 

“How are you coping?” Jack said finally, his voice devoid of its earlier teasing tone. 

“What? I’m not – ” Hermann sputtered, eyes snapping up to look at the other man. 

“Every immortal has to have a way of coping,” Jack continued, looking the mathematician dead in the eye. “If you don’t, you go crazy. Sixteen years maybe isn’t enough to see a major change in your mental status, but you seem to be doing okay so far. So, how are you coping?” 

“Where did you get this idea that I’m immortal from?” Hermann asked, his hands clenched into fists and his nails digging into his palms. “I’m just undead.” 

“Maybe you were just undead before, but now I’m pretty sure you’re immortal,” Jack replied, his gaze still steady. “Before, you couldn’t heal yourself, and you couldn’t physically feel anything. Now, the cut that you had on your left palm is completely gone and you’re claiming that you feel cold. I don’t think it’s too much of a jump to think that the situation has changed.”

“I – ” Hermann started before cutting himself off and starting again, letting out a sigh. “Why don’t I just start from the beginning?”

“Go ahead,” Jack said, leaning back into the pillows piled up on Hermann’s bed and crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m listening.” 

The mathematician let out another inaudible sigh, settling himself down into the large, plush chair in one corner of the room, his leg throbbing in protest as he resettled it on a cushioned footstool. He paused for another moment, looking over at Jack and wondering exactly where he was supposed to start. 

“I don’t honestly know all that much about what happened to me,” Hermann started, looking away from Jack again. “I remember saying goodbye to Tosh and watching the nuclear waste flood the room and the next thing I knew I was waking up strapped to a hospital bed in an old Torchwood One facility.”

“Torchwood One?” Jack asked, his eyes narrowing. “They were shut down after the Battle of Canary Warf.” 

“Apparently not,” Hermann snorted, still frowning. “I wasn’t in the main hub, though, and I only actually saw a few agents while I was there. I’m not entirely sure about all of what they did to me, but I do know that it involved testing drugs modified from those the Pharm had created.”

Hermann felt a shiver travel up his spine as he talked, shuddering at his memories of the Pharm, the way it had drawn its victims in with the promise of a cure to any “incurable” disease, and the horrible consequences of taking the drug. Even now he felt a vague nausea in his stomach as he remembered the way the giant alien mayfly had burst out of its victims’ stomach, its smaller larvae pouring out of the dead patients’ mouths and noses. 

“I was able to get a hold of a few of their notes,” Hermann continued, trying to school his expression to something that wouldn’t reveal his internal disgust. “Apparently when they originally found me, although my body was almost completely destroyed, my consciousness was still salvageable. They infused me with some modified Reset. I assume that that’s what restored my body.” 

“But that’s not how the mayflies work,” Jack interrupted, a thoughtful look on his face. “They just destroy pathogens infecting the body.”

“That’s what I believed, too,” the mathematician sighed, “but I can’t think of any other solution. All I know is that they used me as a lab rat for Reset testing. Well, that and the fact that they forced me to swallow some sort of alien coral – ”

“Did you just say ‘alien coral’?” Jack asked, sitting bolt upright on the bed. 

“Well, yes. What does – ” Hermann started, blinking, only to be cut off by Jack again. 

“Shit,” the captain breathed, looking at Hermann with wide eyes. “Well, I can tell you for certain now that I wasn’t the mayflies that kept you alive.” 

“What, pray tell, is so significant about this coral?” Hermann asked, frustration and a hint of panic evident in his tone.

“Do you know what a TARDIS is?” Jack questioned after a pause to gather his thoughts. 

Hermann shook his head warily. 

“TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space,” the other man continued, crossing his arms even more tightly over his chest. “It’s a sort of space ship made by a race called the Time Lords that can travel through time as well as space by channeling energy from the Time Vortex. One of the unique things about TARDISes, however, is that they’re not built – they grown. From a coral like substance.”

“So you’re saying that I have a _space ship_ growing inside of me,” Hermann blurted out, his hands holding onto the arms of the chair he was sitting in with a death grip. 

“Well, I can’t be entirely certain,” Jack replied tiredly, “but that’s what it sounds like. The way it’s channeling vortex energy into you is probably what’s sustaining your body. That’s how I became immortal – by consuming vortex energy.”

“If that is true, then why do I heal so much slower than you?” Hermann shot back, still unconvinced. “They crippled my leg in order to study how long it took me to recover from various injuries, and while it’s better than it originally was, it’s still utterly useless after a little more than sixteen years.”

“Look, I’m not a scientist – that’s your job,” Jack retorted, eyes moving to look at Hermann’s disabled leg again. “Although I would guess it has something to do with how much vortex energy you’re getting from the TARDIS coral. I absorbed vortex energy from a fully grown TARDIS, but it sounds like you just got part of an immature one.”

“I suppose…” Hermann muttered, also glancing down to glare at his injured leg. 

“How did you escape, anyways?” Jack asked after a moment, frowning at the mathematician. “I can’t imagine they just let you waltz out of there.” 

“Your 456 incident distracted them sufficiently,” Hermann replied simply, although there was a distinct tightness in his voice.

Jack’s expression tensed and he looked away from Hermann. They lapsed into silence again for a painfully long period of time, neither of the two men sure what to say, still processing all of the information they’d learned. Certainly neither of them wanted to talk about the repercussions of the 456 – they’d discussed (shouted about) that enough already. 

“You didn’t actually answer my question, Owen,” Jack finally said, still not looking directly at the other man. 

“What question?” Hermann asked, silently begging Jack to let it lie. 

Of course he didn’t. 

“How are you coping with immortality?” Jack repeated, not calling Hermann out on his attempted diversion. 

“How are _you_ coping?” the mathematician shot back, also avoiding looking directly at Jack. “Considering how Tea-Boy died and all.” 

“With unhealthy amounts of booze and sex,” Jack replied snippily. “That and I closed the Rift. Permanently. Your turn.” 

Hermann finally looked directly at Jack again, making eye contact, his lips pressed into a thin line. He was silent for another moment before he finally opened his mouth to speak. 

“Math,” he answered. “Are you happy now? I’m coping by solving complex mathematics problems and building giant robots to protect Earth from dinosaur like aliens.” 

“That’s a surprisingly reasonable way of going about it,” Jack said, a hint of a smile on his lips again. “Have you committed suicide yet?”

“Have I – what?” Hermann parroted, gaping at Jack. “Of course not! Well, not since… before.” 

His chest clenched uncomfortably as he remembered trying to drown himself all those years ago. He’d stayed underwater for a full thirty six minutes before finally giving up and accepting that he couldn’t physically kill himself, no matter how much he wanted to. 

“Have you been having any suicidal thoughts?” the other man continued, his expression not giving anything away. 

“Well, I mean, a few,” Hermann mumbled, not entirely sure why he was admitting something so deeply personal to Jack. “But I wouldn’t actually… I wouldn’t actually try to kill myself again.”

Jack stared at him intensely again for a moment before standing up and walking over to him. Hermann watched on in wary confusion as Jack approached him, letting out an undignified squawk of dismay as Jack scooped him up and held him in another tight embrace. The mathematician tensed immediately, but slowly began to relax again as it became apparent that Jack was not about to let him go. His breathing steadied as he felt Jack’s heart beating steadily, comfortingly. 

“I can guarantee you that every immortal has tried to commit suicide at least once,” Jack said finally. “I can also guarantee you that the frequency of those thoughts will decrease with time. They’ll never actually go away, but it’ll get better.” 

They stayed like that for a while longer, surrounded by a comfortable silence. 

“So is there any particular reason why you keep hugging me?” Hermann asked, not making any effort to break out of the embrace. 

“Because I thought you were dead for the past sixteen years, you idiot,” Jack replied, but there was no real malice in his voice. “And considering how most of my friends are dead and stay dead, it’s a nice change of pace to actually get one back.”

“The… sentiment is surprisingly mutual,” Hermann muttered against Jack’s shoulder. 

Jack laughed.


	2. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt overhears another conversation and shit goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: person experiencing a seizure

Hermann was stuck in his own personal hell. That is, his genius-idiot of a lab partner had somehow decided that it was a good idea to create a neural bridge form garbage and drift with a _Kaiju brain_. Even at the height of his youthful stupidity Hermann didn’t think he’d done anything nearly that rash and life threatening. 

Well, maybe that one time he entered a cage match with an alien in an underground fight club back when he was twenty six was pretty reckless and stupid, but at least he knew what he was getting into. He knew exactly how the Weevil would kill him. (He had _wanted_ the Weevil to kill him.) That probably didn’t actually make things any better.

As he slid down onto his knees next to Newton he hardly even registered the throbbing in his right leg over the pounding of blood in his ears as he ripped the headset off, his hands trembling as he tried to recall his medical knowledge. He pushed the seizing biologist down onto the cold floor of the laboratory, scrambling to move all of the various lab equipment out of the way so Newt wouldn’t injure himself, cursing himself for belatedly remembering to roll the biologist onto his side in case started vomiting. 

“You idiot,” Hermann muttered under his breath, although it came out a little more choked than he’d anticipated, surprising himself with the teary anxiety rushing through him. “You stupid, _stupid_ idiot! Just this once – just today – you better prove me wrong. You have _got to prove me wrong_ , you mad lunatic. You have got to survive this, or I’ll – I’ll throw out all of your specimens. _Alle_ , hörst du mich, Arschloch? 

“Scheiße!” Hermann cursed as his shaking fingers tugged weakly at Newton’s skinny black tie, trying to loosen it so that his idiot lab partner didn’t choke himself. 

It would be so terribly ironic if his insufferable coworker suffocated due to the vary fashion sense that Hermann so often mocked him for.

Hermann had almost finished unknotting the tie when Newt’s seizing stopped. The biologist was terrifyingly still for a moment before his eyes fluttered shut, then open again, repeating the movement as his eyes refocused. He blinked at Hermann, at a loss for words. 

“Kaiju,” he stuttered finally, still staring at Hermann with over-wide eyes. 

“Thank you for that wonderful insight, you idiot,” Hermann muttered, trying to ignore the pain in his leg and the tremor in his hands. 

“It’s – they have – ” Newt continued, his mouth hanging open as he tried to collect his jumbled thoughts. “I n-need to talk to Pentecost. Like, f-five minutes ago.”

“You need a _doctor_ not Pentecost,” Hermann growled, clinically examining the other scientist. 

He frowned, eyes narrowing. Then, he leaned over started undoing Newton’s belt.

“What are you _doing?_ ” the biologist exclaimed, at least looking a little coherent as he tried to push himself up into a sitting position. 

“Taking off your belt. What does it look like I’m doing?” Hermann snapped, continuing his work.

“Y-yeah, I get that, but _why?_ ” Newt stuttered, turning bright red in a way that Hermann didn’t really want to analyze at the moment. 

“In the event of a seizure, you’re supposed to remove all tight or restrictive clothing from the person so that they don’t end up cutting off their own circulation,” Hermann answered, his voice apparently uninterested, but his cheeks stained a bright pink. “I’m not trying to molest you.”

“Oh,” Newton mumbled, and some expression that Hermann was unable to identify flashed over his face. “Uh, thanks for that.”

Hermann shot him a confused look.

“I’ll shut up now,” Newt continued, also turning slightly pink. 

Hermann let out an annoyed huff and went back to work examining his coworker. 

“I-I really do have to talk to Pentecost, though,” the biologist blurted out a moment later. “I really really do.”

“I can’t just leave you here,” Hermann retorted, again trying to ignore the building pain in his injured leg. “You need proper medical care – ”

“Then get a doctor or something while you’re at it!” Newt exclaimed, frustration evident in his tone as he tried to sit up again, this time managing to half prop himself up on his elbows. 

“I _am_ a doctor!” Hermann yelled, momentarily forgetting himself – forgetting that he was no longer Dr. Owen Harper. 

“Dude, are you _crazy?_ ” Newt replied, his eyes wide, and his mouth hanging open slightly. “Your stupid math degree isn’t going to help me recover from a seizure!”

The mathematician gave a small internal sigh of relief at Newt’s words. Perhaps he could play off the outburst as just momentary hysteria from finding Newt seizing on the lab floor hooked up to a neural bridge connected to a half dead Kaiju brain. 

“J-just get Pentecost, would you?” Newt continued, looking at Hermann imploringly. 

“Fine. Just stay _exactly_ where you are,” the mathematician conceded. “If you move even a centimeter I’ll burn all of your specimens.” 

“Y-you wouldn’t,” Newt said, looking at his college with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, yes I would,” Hermann retorted before pushing himself shakily to his feet and limping out of the lab as quickly as he could. 

\---

Of course, when he came back, Newton was perched on a green chair (which most certainly hadn’t been there when Hermann had left) and was drinking – or attempting to drink – a glass of water. He was mostly just spilling it everywhere. 

Hermann decided that his first order of business when this was all over would be to find a lighter. 

\---

Jack Harkness had arrived at the Hong Kong Shatterdome five days ago. It was a pleasant enough place, he’d decided. In fact, the bare metal and concrete of the bunker style building occasionally brought on a wave of nostalgia in him as he remembered the metallic industrial décor of the old Torchwood Three hub. Then again, the jobs that Torchwood and the Pan Pacific Defense Corps did were remarkably similar: protecting the civilian population from aliens. Maybe that’s why he’d been so drawn to the job. 

Not that he’d actually done all of what was listed in his PPDC file. It did, after all, say that he was an ex-Jaeger pilot whose co-pilot had died. Jack had, reportedly, spent the years since his partner’s death training other Jaeger pilots. This was partially true, as Jack had, in fact, spent much of the past ten years training eager young men and women to fight aliens with giant robots. It was just that, well, he’d never actually had a drift partner. 

That’s not to say he’d never piloted a Jaeger. He had – he’d just done it alone and only a handful of times. It wasn’t unheard of, a single person piloting a Jaeger. In fact, Marshall Pentecost, his new commanding officer, was an example of that. The difference was that most people who piloted a Jaeger alone did so because their co-pilot had died. Jack had done so because there was no one who could possibly withstand drifting with him. You know, considering how he was an immortal time traveler over two thousand years old. 

That being said, even though he’d never actually drifted with someone didn’t mean he couldn’t help young pilots understand and successfully complete the process. He did know a thing or two about dealing with excess memories, particularly traumatic memories. He had, after all, died some thousands, millions, or even billions of times. He’d lost count a long time ago.

He also knew a thing or two about loss. 

“You know, I have to say – sadness is _not_ an attractive look on you,” Jack said, sauntering over to the young woman – Mako Mori, his memory supplied – as she gazed out over the Shatterdome from her perch on the gray metal and concrete balcony, basked in orange-yellow, artificial light, “and I’m pretty sure that your co-pilot would agree with me.” 

“Please do not mock me, Captain,” Mako replied, her tone choked with both anger and sadness as she glanced over her shoulder to glare at Jack. “I am well aware of my failure.” 

“Remind me, what failure are we talking about here?” Jack asked, moving to stand next to the young Jaeger pilot. “Because all I saw today was an inexperienced pilot hit a bit of turbulence after her partner got lost in a memory, which, as the senior pilot, he should have been able to avoid.” 

Mako stared at him, her eyes wide, as an angry red spread across her cheeks, her eyes narrowing and her hands clenching into fists. 

“You should not blame Mr. Beckett!” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest – probably to keep herself from punching him, Jack thought idly. “It was my duty as his co-pilot to help retrieve him from that memory, but instead I succumbed to my own weakness – ”

“And therein lies your problem,” Jack interrupted, trying not to smile. “‘Mr. Beckett.’”

“Mr. Beckett is not my problem – ” Mako replied, confusion evident in her tone as she frowned at Jack. 

“And that’s your problem,” Jack said, leaning back against the balcony railing and smiling openly. “Your problem is that he’s not your problem. As his partner, he _needs_ to be your problem. The strength of the Jaeger comes from the strength of the bond, right? So you need to quit concentrating on strengthening yourself and start strengthening your bond. Your partner will make up for any of your failings.”

Mako stared at him for a moment, processing the new advice she’d been given before blinking once. When she opened her eyes again, Jack grinned at the shift he saw in her. 

“But I still must learn to control my memories,” Mako replied, peering at Jack, clearly curious about what he had to say on the subject. “Mr. Beckett cannot do that for me.” 

“First of all, you’re going about this in the wrong way,” Jack started, grasping his left wrist with his right hand, feeling the texture of Ianto’s old watch under his palm. “Memories aren’t something you control. If you try, it’ll just blow up in your face. The key to managing your memories is to accept them.” 

“How do you accept something when it is horrible?” the young woman asked quietly, glancing back out over the Shatterdome. 

“That’s for you to figure out,” the Captain replied simply, pushing himself up off of the balcony railing. 

Satisfied, he began walking over to exit, leaving Mako to her thoughts. 

“Thank you,” he heard her say suddenly. 

He turned around to find her looking at him again, a hint of a smile on her lips and a rekindled spark of determination in her eyes. 

“Your advice is very helpful, I think,” she continued, nodding at him respectfully, “and I think that it would also help Mr. Beckett. It would help you, too.” 

Jack blinked at her, surprised, as her eyes flickered over to glance at the watch he was still clutching a little more tightly than was actually comfortable. He felt his heart clench uncomfortably at the memory of Ianto’s still warm, but undeniably lifeless, body weighing down his arms as he tried not to completely lose it when he still had an entire planet to save. 

“You’re too smart for your own good, Kid,” Jack replied, letting out a huff of what was almost amusement. “But if you’re going to make this Jaeger pilot thing work, you might want to start calling ‘Mr. Beckett’ Raleigh.” 

“I will promise to try if you promise to try,” Mako answered, smiling openly now, not needing to indicate what Jack was supposed to try. 

“Deal,” Jack said after a moment before leaving the balcony. “We have a deal.”

\---

But while things had already completely gone to hell for Hermann, they hadn’t quite completely gone to hell for everyone else yet. Keyword being yet. Of course, it only took a few more hours for fate, or god, or pure dumb luck to change that. 

“Cheung, Hu, and Jin Wei Tang are dead. Sasha and Aleksis Kaidonovsky are dead. Both Hercules and Chuck Hansen are currently incapacitated,” Stacker Pentecost announced, looking around at the PPDC personal crowded in the control room. “And in three days, there will be a triple event that Earth will likely not survive unless we strike preemptively, as was previously planned.”

To say that the future of humanity looked bleak was quite an understatement in Newt’s opinion. Basically, it looked like their lives depended on two Jaeger pilots who hadn’t even met each other before five days prior. Sure, fortune favored the brave, but fortune also favored those who actually had a fucking chance. 

Fuck, he was starting to sound like Hermann. Which was most certainly not a good thing. Next thing he knew, he was going to start having wet dreams about Mersenne primes or something. Ew. 

(Not that having wet dreams about the stuffy mathematician himself were much better…)

“Captain Jones,” Pentecost said loudly, drawing Newt back out of his (increasingly strange) thoughts. “I need you to pilot a Jaeger.” 

“No,” Jones replied immediately, shocking, well, everyone. 

Newt blinked at the handsome man, his mouth falling open slightly and his eyes large and owlish behind his large glasses. Jeez, what was it about this asshole that Hermann found so unbearably attractive? (Well, besides his well defined chest, his broad shoulders, his unbearably sexy smirk, etc.) The entirety of Earth was in danger of being completely and utterly destroyed by giant Godzilla-like monsters and he said _no_ to stopping them? What. The. Fuck. 

“No?” Pentecost retorted, narrowing his eyes, his tone razor sharp. 

“There are only two people who I could ever possibly drift with,” Hermann’s new boytoy replied, his voice unwavering as he stared Pentecost directly in the eye. “One of them disappeared years ago and the other… just can’t.”

“Just can’t what?” Pentecost asked, clearly not impressed with the captain’s answer. “I don’t care where in the world they are – I can get them here within twenty four hours.”

“It’s not that,” Jones said, still apparently unaffected by the Marshall’s verbal prodding. 

“Then what is it?” the other man questioned, his tone becoming increasingly darker. 

It was like watching some sort of bizarre tennis match. Newt was just waiting for one of them to snap and hit the other in the face with their racket. 

“They’ve never piloted a Jaeger, not to mention that they couldn’t physically withstand it,” Jones replied firmly, uncompromising. 

“You do realize that the future of this entire planet rests on the success of this mission,” Pentecost said, taking a step towards the captain. 

“Exactly, the _success_ of it,” Jones retorted, still not backing down, causing Newt to wonder idly when exactly he’d be allowed to leave this stupid meeting to go drift with another Kaiju brain, because really, this was taking far too long. 

(He was also kind of wondering if Jones’ forceful personality meant that Hermann liked getting dom-ed and wasn’t that a really fucking sexy thought, but really not something he should be dwelling on in a crowded room with said mathematician standing only a few feet away. Newt did his best to tear his eyes away from Hermann’s ass and not turn bright pink.)

“Then you can drift with me,” Pentecost replied, his statement clearly an order and not the suggestion it was phrased as. 

“Sorry, no can do,” Jones said simply, giving the Marshall a half smile that so filled to the brim with bitter irony that Newt could almost taste it. “Not that I wouldn’t love to get inside that handsome head of yours, but I don’t think you could withstand what I have cooped up in here.”

He tapped his forehead, that stupid smile still stretched awkwardly across his face like a too small spandex Halloween costume – tight and kind of uncomfortable to look at, but impossible to tear your gaze away from. 

“Are you doubting my ability to maintain myself within the drift?” Pentecost challenged, clearly unimpressed by Jones’ reasoning. 

“Of course not,” the captain replied, surprisingly courteous. “Not with anyone else, that is. I just know that you wouldn’t be able to handle all the memories I’ve got jammed in here.” 

Newt couldn’t help but notice the odd way Hermann flinched at Jones’ words, causing the biologist to frown. What was it about this stupid American that seemed to affect Hermann so much? 

“You can’t know that until we’ve at least tried drifting,” Pentecost retorted, still staring at Jones almost unblinkingly. “Don’t think so highly of yourself, Captain.” 

“Have you ever been tortured?” Jones asked suddenly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Been a prisoner of war? Been in the captivity of a psycho?”

“I have not,” Pentecost replied calmly, not batting an eyelash. 

“Then how about I don’t make you experience it?” Jones said, just as calmly as Pentecost, but Newt could see that the hairs on the nape of the captain’s neck were standing on end. 

“Captain Jones,” Pentecost snapped, his tone just as steely, but a little more impatient than before, “This is not up for discussion. You and I are the PPDC’s only options at the moment, and I will get you in that Jaeger if I have to strap you into it myself.” 

“So forward, Marshall,” Jones replied, shooting Pentecost a sultry smirk, “but with all due respect, I’d prefer the bondage to happen in the bedroom.” 

Newt had to stifle a laugh at that comment. He idly wondered what bizarre cosmic force had drawn Hermann and Jones together, because they seemed to be the complete antithesis of each other in every way shape and form. Well, except for the bossiness. 

“Half an hour – my office, Jones,” Pentecost answered, and Newt had to resist letting out an “ooooh” as if he was back in middle school and Jones had just been called to the principal’s office. 

Eh, well, the situation was essentially the same. 

Jones opened his mouth to retort, but Pentecost was already halfway out the door by the time he was able to form the first syllable. Again, the biologist resisted the slightly vindictive urge to laugh as he followed Pentecost out of the control room, jogging slightly in order to catch up to the Marshall. 

“So, about that Kaiju brain – ” he started, but was cut off fairly quickly. 

“Dr. Geiszler, now is really not the time,” Pentecost sighed, bringing up on hand to rub at his temples while his other hand reached for the down button for the elevator. 

“What? Oh, er, well, I just need authorization to use some equipment, and – ” Newt continued, digging around his pockets for a (very crumpled) list of machinery, but only coming up with a candy bar wrapper, a chewed on bic pen, and a few miscellaneous and multicolored pipette tips.

“Dr. Geiszler, the world might very well end in four days,” Pentecost said, turning to Newt and pinning the biologist with his intense gaze. “At this point, I don’t give a damn what equipment you take as long as it doesn’t shut down the entire Shatterdome.”

The elevator binged, its silver metal doors sliding open. The Marshall strode forward, not sparing Newton another word, or even another glance as said biologist did his best to resist his urge to dance around in the hallway like a maniac. Of course, when the elevator doors had slid securely shut again, Newt bounced up and down excitedly a couple of times before spinning around and sprinting back to his lab (well, his and Hermann’s lab) to gather up some of the supplies he needed. 

However, as he raced down the hallway he heard the distinctive sound of Hermann yelling at someone. Newt skidded to an abrupt stop, managing to catch himself before he rounded the corner of the hall. He frowned, clenching his teeth, a bizarre sure of jealously clenching his stomach. He was supposed to be the only person Hermann screamed at like that! It was his special talent – making Hermann that angry. 

Newt felt his heart sink as a certain other voice responded to Hermann’s outcry. 

“ – it has nothing to do with – ” Captain Jones retorted, his tone sharp. 

“So you’re not denying it?” Hermann interrupted, and Newt could almost see the angry glower on the mathematician’s face. 

“I’m not denying it,” Hermann’s newfound obsession replied, “but there’s no way I’m letting you in a Jaeger.” 

“Have you forgotten that the lives of everyone on this planet are at stake?” Hermann hissed, slamming his cane down on the floor agitatedly. 

“No, I haven’t,” Jones retorted angrily, “which is precisely why I can’t let you do this! Even if I’m right and you are one of the two people who I could actually drift with, there’s no way we could manage it with your bum leg.” 

“I could take the left side,” the mathematician argued. “Bloody hell, I could even rework the design to accommodate me! I helped engineer them, after all. And don’t – ” Hermann continued, probably glaring Jones into submission, “try to argue that I shouldn’t do it because I’ve never actually piloted one before. Just because I’ve never physically been in one doesn’t mean I don’t remember all of what was crammed into my head at the stupid Jaeger Academy – ”

“Owen!” Jones barked, silencing the scientist for a moment – and there was that foreign name again, ringing in Newt’s ears. “I’m not doing it. _You_ are not doing it. I am not going to lose you too!”

“Oh, so that’s what you’re worried about?” Hermann demanded. “You’re going to risk the lives of everyone on this planet because you feel guilty about Tosh and Ianto dying?” 

“It’s because – ” the captain started, only to be cut off by Hermann again. 

“I’ll just go tell Pentecost myself, then!” the mathematician retorted. 

Jones said something else in response, but Newt could hear Hermann’s uneven footsteps and the tapping of his cane on the concrete floor coming closer to him. Not wanting to be discovered and still unsure how to interpret the second bizarre conversation between Hermann and Captain Jones that he’d heard since the strange man’s arrival, the biologist turned tail and ran back down the hallway the way he’d come, trying to think of alternative routes to the lab and trying not to dwell on the fact that Hermann and Stupid Handsome Guy were apparently drift compatible. 

Newt was also doing his best not to think about how Hermann was barreling headfirst into his own death, what with trying to pilot a Jaeger with his stupid leg and all. Newt’s heart clenched as his mind conjured terrible images of Hermann’s bright red blood splattered all over the interior of a Jaeger cockpit. 

He wondered if this is what it had felt like for Hermann when he’d come across Newt seizing on the floor of their lab. He dismissed the thought. 

\---

“Captain Jones and I are drift compatible,” Hermann blurted out as soon as Marshall Pentecost had opened his office door. 

Pentecost stared at him calculatingly for a moment before saying, “I think we should discuss this in privacy.” 

Hermann nodded and followed Pentecost into the office, taking a seat in one of the two extremely hard and uncomfortable plastic chairs on the other side of the desk from the Marshall. 

“Explain,” Pentecost ordered simply, his intense gaze boring into the mathematician as he tried to construct an appropriate response that was close enough to the truth that Pentecost would believe it, but not so truthful as to reveal too much about his (rather sordid) past. 

“Ja-Jones knows me from before I joined the PPDC,” Hermann started, steadying his breathing and cursing himself for his stupid slip up, trying to remind himself that Captain Jack Harkness was now Captain Ianto Jones. “We met when I was getting my graduate degree. He’s a good friend and has helped me through some very difficult situations before. I’m the person he said he could drift with, but who wouldn’t be able to physically withstand piloting a Jaeger – ” 

“Well, could you?” Pentecost broke in, looking at Hermann expectantly. “Could you withstand piloting a Jaeger.”

“Well, I believe so – ” Hermann replied, only to be cut off again. 

“Then I expect to see you in a Jaeger in three days,” the Marshall said simply. “And tell Jones to come see me. You’re dismissed, Dr. Gottlieb.”

\---

Hermann tried to ignore the shocked and prying stares of what seemed like just about every single person in the Shatterdome as he strode towards the Jaeger that he was expected to pilot – Striker Eureka. He tamped down on the embers of fear that flared to life in his chest as the Mark-5 Jaeger loomed over him ominously. The mathematician closed his eyes for a little longer than a standard blink, steadying himself, grateful that the pilot’s suit he was wearing had been modified so that it most compensated for his limp. Mostly. It was still going to be hell to move in sync with Jack in the way he knew he had to. Not to mention the fact that he was going to have nearly two thousand years worth of memories shoved into his head over the span of a few minutes at the same time. 

Logically, Hermann knew that he was the only one who could do this – drift with Jack, that is. After all, no one else here knew what it was like to die once, much less the many thousands of times Jack had surely died over his lifetime. At least he had already died twice – possibly more, as he wasn’t sure if he’d actually died a couple of times after blacking out from the tests the Torchwood One agents had done on him. 

“I understand what you are feeling, Dr. Gottlieb,” a soft, but steady voice said suddenly, causing Hermann to twitch slightly as he turned to face the speaker. 

“Ms. Mori,” he greeted, blinking, attempting to be polite, but at the same time rather confused. 

“Most of them do not believe that you can do it,” she continued bluntly, staring Hermann directly in the eye in the same way her adoptive father had done. 

“Ms. Mori, I’m sure you’re trying to be helpful, but I’m not…” Hermann trailed off, unsure of what he had planned on saying. 

“Scared? Worried? Intimidated?” Mako supplied, raising one eyebrow at him, a corner of her moth perking up in a semblance of a smile. “I think you can do it. You are much stronger than most give you credit for.” 

“Oh. Ah, thank you,” Hermann replied, blushing slightly. “I also think that what you did yesterday was – exquisite. Piloting a Jaeger again so soon after…” 

“Thank you,” Mako said, smiling fully now, and Hermann was thankful that she’d taken his words as the compliment they had intended to be. “Good luck.” 

With that, she turned into the diction of her own Jaeger, jogging slightly to catch up with Raleigh, who she immediately fell into step with. Meanwhile, Jack slid in next to the mathematician, taking the young Japanese girl’s place as they came to a stop in front of the heavy steel doors leading to Striker Eureka’s cockpit. 

“Now this,” he said, giving Hermann a through once over, a lopsided smirk on his face, “is a _big_ improvement from the stuffy professor thing you had going on.” 

“I look like bloody android,” Hermann muttered, glaring at Jack, who didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

“But a sexy android,” the captain retorted, laughing slightly. “Jesus, when was the last time you got laid?”

“I don’t know,” Hermann muttered and looked away from him. He felt Jack’s gaze boring into the side of his head as the gears in the man’s head began turning. 

“You’re not seriously telling me that Owen Harper, sex addict, can’t remember the last time he had sex,” Jack replied, his tone more than a little incredulous. “You’re not going completely cold turkey, are you?”

Hermann didn’t reply. 

“Oh my god, you _are_ ,” Jack exclaimed, causing Hermann to glare at him again in an attempt to get him to at least lower his volume a bit. 

“I figured it would be easier with the leg and all,” Hermann answered finally, turning his glare so that his glare was boring into the heavy steel door in front of them instead. 

“There’s no way the Owen Harper I knew would have let a little leg injury get between him and sex,” Jack retorted, his smirk fading somewhat. “I mean, seriously – not even your lab partner? You know, the cutely scruffy one with the tattoos?”

“Newton?” Hermann squawked, whipping around to stare at Jack with wide eyes. “What the bloody hell are you – ”

However, just as suddenly as Hermann had started to rant, he cut himself off, turning to look around the crowds gathered in the main hanger of the Shatterdome in confusion. Every moment he spent looking for the biologist – and not seeing him – his heart clenched a little more in his chest. 

“Fuck,” the mathematician breathed softly, his eyes widening as he realized what his stupid colleague was probably up to. “Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” Jack demanded, his tone clearly concerned. 

“My idiot colleague is going to try to drift with another Kaiju brain today,” Hermann answered, the words spilling out of his mouth. “Shit, he’s going to get himself _killed_ – I can’t – but I need to – ”

“What can’t you do? What do you need?” Jack asked. 

“Another drift with a Kaiju brain will probably kill him,” Hermann blurted, looking at Jack with a sort of panic in his eyes that Jack hadn’t seen in them since the day Hermann’s (well, Owen’s) fiancé had been killed. 

“Well, then tell someone to got stop him,” Jack replied. 

“I can’t,” Hermann said, scowling up at the captain. “The last time I tried that he did it anyway. He’s hell bent on this and the only way…”

“The only way…?” Jack prompted, not liking the way that his friend’s eyes grew slightly darker. 

“Look, I’m not even sure if it would work, but if – if he had someone else to drift with, to share the load…” Herman trailed off, carefully avoiding Jack’s eyes. 

“You want to go drift with him,” Jack summarized, his mouth turning downwards in a tight frown. 

“…yes, but I have to – ” Hermann replied, biting his lower lip in frustration. 

“How vital is it that he lives?” Jack interrupted, his eyes taking on a new coldness, a new calculating feeling. 

“How vital is – very!” the mathematician sputtered, his face turning slightly red as he glared at Jack again. “I mean, last time he drifted with – ”

“Then go,” Jack sighed, nodding towards the emergency exit a ways away to their left. 

“Go? But I can’t just – ” Hermann exclaimed, still red. 

“Yes, you can,” Jack asserted firmly, his tone leaving no room for compromise. “I’ve piloted a Jaeger by myself before.”

“But the strain – ” Hermann tried. 

“Hey, I’m immortal, remember?” Jack said, smiling weakly. “Worst comes to worst, I die a few more times. Just go save your boyfriend.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Hermann retorted, scowling at Jack again, but still turning to head towards the exit. “I’m just doing it so that in case he discovers any vital information he doesn’t just take it to his grave.” 

“Keep telling yourself that,” Jack replied, grinning openly this time. 

Hermann almost flipped him off before remembering that while Owen Harper would have already flipped him off, flipping people off wasn’t the sort of thing that uptight Hermann Gottlieb did. He had to settle for glaring before pushing through the exit door and starting to run, hoping that he wasn’t already too late. 

Behind him, Captain Jack Harkness steeled himself before walking through the heavy metal doors leading to the Jaeger cockpit. 

“I really hope this works,” he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> German translation:  
> Alle, hörst du mich, Arschloch? - All of them, do you hear me, asshole?


	3. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People die, Newt is confused, and Marshall Pentecost has way too much shit to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finally managed to complete the last chapter! Hope you guys enjoy it! Also, if you're interested in sending me fanfic prompts, I now have an official tumblr: authorkurikuri.tumblr.com
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Someone gets shot

Newt stared at the Kaiju in front of him. It was fascinating and grotesque and beautiful and he was going to have to drift with it or all of mankind would die. He stared into its huge, dead eyes, and for a selfish moment he wished that he didn’t have to destroy the Kaiju which he had spent his entire life chasing, dissecting, and discovering. Hermann would hate him if he knew. Well, hate him even more, at any rate. 

Newt closed his eyes for a moment, trying to clear his mind of all these distracting thoughts of his grouchy friend-partner-colleague-whatever and center himself. He needed to be fully prepared if he wanted to have any chance of surviving this second drift. Oh, he wasn’t stupid – he knew that there was a high chance of him dying of the neural overload this time, but he really couldn’t see any way around it. 

He sighed, so soft he barely even registered it himself, and climbed up onto the baby Kaiju – Otachi’s baby. He allowed himself to take one more long look before driving the neural transmitter into the prone ( _dead_ ) creature’s skull, wincing slightly at the squelch and crack it produced. Newt gritted his teeth and jumped down off of the Kaiju, tearing his eyes away and reaching for his headset. 

“Wait!” a grumpy, far too familiar voice yelled, causing Newt to pause and whip around.

The biologist gaped at the man who was half running half limping toward him. He wanted to yell at Hermann, demand to know why he was there and not off piloting a Jaeger like he was supposed to, but no sound came out of his mouth. For the first time in years – possibly in his life – Newton Geiszler was struck speechless. He continued to stare, half dazed at the sight of crotchety old Hermann Gottlieb decked out in full combat armor, sleek and metallic. 

“Newton? Newton!” the mathematician barked, pulling the biologist back down to earth. 

“What are you doing here?” Newt blurted out, still staring at Hermann incredulously. “You’re supposed to be off fighting Kaiju!”

“Well, yes, but – ” Hermann started, frowning. 

“But what?” Newt exclaimed, clutching the headset in his hands a little more tightly. “Did something happen? Is the mission not running? Are we too late? Did – ”

“No, it’s not – ” Hermann interrupted, breaking off Newt’s increasingly panicked ramblings. 

“Then why the hell are you here?” Newt demanded, wide eyed. 

“Because if you try to drift with another Kaiju by yourself you’ll _die!_ ” the mathematician snapped, scowling and red faced. “I’ll share the neural load with you.” 

“You’ll what?” the biologist asked, dumbfounded. 

“I’ll drift with you so you don’t die,” Hermann answered, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You’d do that for me?” Newt said, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I mean – _with_ me. You’d do that with me?”

“I – it would be useless for you to drift with that Kaiju if you were just going to die without being able to tell anyone what you discovered,” Hermann replied, and Newt squinted at him slightly, half convinced that the other scientist’s cheeks had turned a little pink. (Why they’d turned pink, he had no idea.)

“Not that I don’t appreciate your offer, but who’s going to pilot Striker Eureka if you’re here?” Newt asked, trying to suppress the warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest that arose as he thought about Hermann running all the way from the shatterdome to help him. “Because, you know, that’s kind of important, too – ”

“Jack has it under control,” Hermann answered, pushing past Newt to grab the backup headset that Newt had brought along just in case. 

“Who’s Jack?” Newt questioned, frowning, and he couldn’t help but remembering how a few days ago Hermann had almost called Jones something else, something starting with “Ja.” 

“That’s not important right now,” the mathematician replied, brushing off the question and putting on the extra headset, a look of steely determination on his face. “We don’t have much time.” 

“But – ” Newt started before sighing and cutting himself off, reaching to secure his own headset. “Fine, fine. Just know that I’m getting answers once this is all over.” 

Hermann smiled at him ever so slightly and Newt felt his heart skip a beat. 

“Well then if you want to know, you’d better survive,” Hermann said. 

“Come on, we’re just drifting with a Kaiju brain,” Newt joked, returning the mathematician’s small smile with a lopsided grin. “I’ve already done it once this week. Are you sure you’re ready to handle this?”

“Well, if even someone like you can do it,” Herman replied, although his tone was light, not cutting, causing Newt’s grin to widen slightly.

“Okay then. Initiating neural handshake in five…” the biologist started, eyes still locked with Hermann’s as his hand hovered over the equipment controls, “…four…three…two…one!”

He pressed the button and closed his eyes.

\---

Drifting with Hermann was nothing like he’d imagined it. Not that that was the sort of thing he imaged very often, but, well, sometimes he daydreamed and sometimes Hermann was included in those daydreams.

Anyway. When he thought of Hermann Gottlieb, he thought of chalkboards, equations, and old cardigans. He thought of tea, coffee, and serenity. He thought of scowls, grumpiness, and age old arguments. He thought of home.

This, on the other hand. _This_ was not Hermann, not his Hermann anyway. This was something completely foreign, completely alien. It was snippets of memories – memories that had to be from a time before, because even though Hermann didn’t look much younger than he was now, what little he saw of this – this _imposter_ didn’t match. He was only able to gather tidbits for now, mere glimpses as the hundreds of thousands of memories passed by: sex, alcohol, guns, and leather. Snark and gore and such a cacophony of bitterness and violence!

And death. So much death. 

Newt was almost glad when the Kaiju’s mind overwhelmed Hermann’s. 

\---

Jack Harkness swore as he gripped the unyielding metal of the Jaeger controls. Piloting a Jaeger on his own certainly hadn’t gotten any easier since last time. If anything, it had gotten harder. He grit his teeth as he felt the blood pounding in his ears. Striker Eureka was already fully submerged, but they hadn’t even encountered either of the Kaiju yet. Despite that fact, it was all Jack could do to keep moving forward without blacking out. Dark spots were already crowding his vision and, for the millionth time, he wondered if it had really been a good idea to let Owen go. 

He wasn’t about to give up on Owen again, though. Not after what happened last time, because the last time he’d given up on Dr. Owen Harper – when he’d left him for dead – it had been sixteen years before he’d realized his mistake. He couldn’t abandon his only living friend like that again. 

“Striker Eureka, report,” Marshall Pentecost barked, his tone stern and demanding. 

“We’ve got everything under control, here,” Jack replied, thankful that he was so used to dealing with immense pain that his voice didn’t even waver. 

“And Dr. Gottlieb?” Pentecost inquired, a hint of suspicion in his tone. 

“He’s fine,” Jack answered, hoping desperately that Pentecost didn’t dig any deeper.

Of course, like any good commanding officer, he did.

“I’d like to hear it from him,” the Marshall countered, his voice even. 

“Don’t do it! Don’t do it – it’s not going to work!” a voice yelled, over the comm. system, saving Jack from answering. 

“What do you mean it’s not going to work?” Pentecost demanded, his tone stern and dangerous. “And what the bloody hell are you doing here, Gottlieb? Why aren’t you piloting Striker Eureka?” 

“This was more important,” Owen’s voice replied, causing Jack to let out a breath he hadn’t even known he had been holding, grateful that Owen appeared to have survived the drift. “You must know that – ”

“If you’re here, then who the fuck is with Jones?” Pentecost interrupted, clearly furious and at least a little panicked. 

“That’s not important right now,” Owen insisted. “We don’t have time to argue about this!”

“Look, you’re not going to be able to get the bomb through!” the other scientist – the tattoo one – exclaimed, sounding hyper and jittery. “Only a Kaiju can pass through the rift!”

“It’s like a barcode at the supermarket,” Owen added, seeming to have shoved past the Marshall. “You’re going to have to somehow fool the breech – ”

“ – into thinking you’re a Kaiju with the same code!” the biologist finished. 

“Well how the fuck are we supposed to do that?” Beckett demanded, clearly frustrated. 

“I think I have an idea,” Jack broke in, a plan forming in his mind. 

He really, really hoped this would work.

\---

Hermann was the first to find him. Which really was for the best, considering how Jack was, once again, dead. Jack was sprawled out in the cockpit of Striker Eureka which was safely docked in the shatterdome, which probably meant that Jack had only died a few minutes ago after managing to shut everything down. Of course, there was also a certain inconvenience to this, as, depending on how stressful the death was, it could take Jack anywhere from a few seconds to ten minutes to revive, and Hermann could only keep the paramedics at bay for so long. Thankfully they seemed to be occupied with Raleigh Beckett at the moment, considering how he’d also gone into cardiac arrest, which, for him, would probably be permanent.

“Jack!” Hermann hissed, trying to dethatch him from the Jaeger machinery. “Jack, you need to hurry up and start bloody well breathing again. Any moment now would be nice!”

He scowled and pinched the other man, cursing under his breath as Jack continued to not breathe.

“Hey, Herms!” a voice called out, and wasn’t that just his luck? Well, at least it was Newt who already had all of his memories stuffed in his head, anyway. “Oh, shit! Is he okay? We need to get someone over here – ”

Just then, Jack decided to start breathing again. Maybe his luck wasn’t actually all that bad today.

“No!” Hermann exclaimed, trying to block Jack from the biologist’s view as the immortal regained his wits and consciousness. “He’s fine.” 

“No thanks to you,” Jack muttered under his breath, having apparently regained enough energy to prop himself up on his elbows and heave himself into a sitting position. 

The mathematician glanced over at Jack for a moment to make sure he really was recovering properly before turning his attention back to Newt who was still standing in the cockpit door, peering at the two of them curiously. He looked like he was about to say something, but before he could get even one word out of his gaping mouth, Marshall Pentecost’s loud voice echoed through the hallway. 

“Jones, Gottlieb, and Geiszler, I want you three in my office right now!” he called, his tone containing a sharp edge which made Hermann a little uncomfortable. They’d closed the rift – what more could he want? 

“But – ” Newt began to protest, only to be cut off by a sharp, “You will _not_ argue with me,” from Pentecost. 

Hermann shot his partner a look which he hoped Newt interpreted as “Just do as he says,” but, of course, Newt was never very reliable when it came to reading Hermann’s expressions. Hopefully if nothing else the drift had fixed that. The biologist stared at him for a moment, but finally stepped out into the hallway and followed after their commanding officer, so it appeared to have worked, at least to a certain extent. Hermann in turn looked back at Jack for a moment who was already up on his feet again before also heading in the direction of Marshall Pentecost’s office. 

On the walk over, Newt was uncharacteristically quiet. Normally he was bursting with energy, chattering on about whatever came to mind – mainly Kaijus – at a mile a minute, but during their entire walk he was silent. He kept sneaking what he probably thought were subtle glances at Hermann and a couple of times he opened his mouth as if to say something, but he never uttered any words. Not that Hermann thought that was any particular tragedy. Really, he didn’t.

When they finally entered Pentecost’s office, Hermann was mildly surprised to find Raleigh Beckett, Mako Mori, Hercules and Chuck Hansen already in attendance. Mako and her stepfather were discussing something that Hermann wasn’t able to make out in soft tones at one end of the room while the others waited patiently around the rest of the small room. 

“It’s nice to see that you gentlemen could make it,” Pentecost said, breaking away from his conversation with Mako, his tone more than a little biting. “Close the door and we’ll begin.”

Jack did as the Marshall said, shutting the door behind him, although he didn’t look particularly comfortable with it. 

“Captain Jones,” Pentecost continued, causing Jack to stand up a little straighter, his expression betraying nothing. “Would you care to tell me who else piloted Striker Eureka with you, as it was clearly not Dr. Gottlieb?”

“Are you still jealous that it wasn’t you with me, Marshall?” Jack replied, smiling his most charming smile as he tried to weasel his way out of the interrogation. “Because I have to say – ”

“Enough of this nonsense,” Pentecost barked, causing the smile on Jack’s face to diminish slightly. “Tell me the truth.” 

“The truth?” Jack laughed, his tone still light. “Well, I thought it looked like a one man job.” 

“That’s impossible,” Hercules Hansen interrupted, crossing his arms tightly over his chest and giving Jack an even look. “The human mind can’t handle the strain for that long.” 

“Sorry, you’re trying to tell me that you can’t possibly pilot a Jaeger on your own when there are not one, but _two_ people in this room who’ve also done it,” Jack countered, motioning to both Pentecost and Raleigh. 

“I was only able to pilot that Jaeger alone for twenty minutes before blacking out, and even then I was unconscious for three days,” Raleigh replied, taking a step toward the dark haired man. “You don’t even have a scratch on you.” 

“Maybe I’m just – ” Jack started, only to be cut off as the door to the room burst open.

Hermann wasn’t entirely sure what happened then. Oh, he knew the gist of it, had a vague outline, but really the only thing he registered was that a crazy man was waving around a gun and that gun was pointed at Dr. Newton Geiszler. Therefore, he did the only logical thing and stepped in front of him. 

There was a bang – of course there was a bang, a gun had just gone off! – but to Hermann at least, it wasn’t terribly loud. Granted, he had heard a lot of gunfire in his life, so perhaps it was just because he was used to the noise. The next thing he knew, he was falling backwards. His head hurt like fuck and his vision was going a little spotty, but other than that thing seemed… fine. He felt drowsy and his head was still throbbing, and he registered dully that he was probably dying. 

Again. 

\---

Newt was pretty sure he screamed. It felt like he’d screamed, at least. His throat was dry and his heart was pounding in his chest as he scrambled over to Hermann’s body lying limp on the floor. In the background, he was idly aware that Captain What’s His Face had tackled the shooter, and that the gunman in question was spouting some nonsense about Hannibal Chau, a missing shoe, and ending their arrangement with the PPDC (it probably had something to do with Chau being eaten), but right now, in the midst of all this chaos, none of that mattered to Newt. 

All that mattered to him was that Hermann Gottlieb, that grumpy mathematician who he’d somehow fallen in love with over these past few years, was lying on the ground in a steadily increasing pool of blood with a bullet hole directly between his still wide open, unblinking eyes. Newt had never in his entire life seen anything more blood chillingly horrifying. 

“Beckett! I need you to run and get a medic – ” Newt heard Pentecost yell, however, at that moment, a thought – or, rather, a memory that had been floating on the surface of Newt’s consciousness – surfaced. 

“Wait!” he exclaimed, touching a hand to Hermann’s cheek and staring at the other scientist incredulously. “Wait a minute – he’s not – ”

“He’s not dead,” Stupidly Handsome Guy finished, staring at Hermann’s prone body lying on the floor, having already knocked out the shooter. “Just give him a minute or two.” 

“Well, he’s not going to stay alive for much longer if we don’t – ” Hercules Hansen started, trying to push past the Captain, only to be pulled back. 

“No, he’s right!” Newt said, looking up at the tall Australian and willing him to understand what Newt could barely comprehend himself, much less explain or describe. “Just wait a moment – ”

“That bloody well hurt!” a voice grumbled suddenly, and Newt glanced down again to see Hermann rubbing a hand over his forehead, possibly trying to soothe the pain, but instead just smearing blood over his pale face. 

“It gets better after a few times,” the Captain, whoever he was, replied, a grin spreading across his face as he walked over, extending a hand in order to help the mathematician into a sitting position. “This is only your second time dying from a bullet wound, isn’t it?” 

“Don’t remind me,” Hermann muttered, making a face at the blood caked and already drying on his hand. 

“Does one of you three want to explain to me what the hell is going on here?” Pentecost demanded, breaking Newt out of his trance as he stared blankly at Zombie Hermann. 

“I am, for all intents and purposes, immortal,” Hermann stated matter of factly, still looking displeased with the whole matter. “And he’s slightly more immortal than me.”

Hermann motioned to Tall Dark and Handsome who was still standing next to him, and Newt, for a moment, wondered how it was possible to be more immortal than someone else. In response, bits and pieces of newly acquired memories that were certainly not his ghosted over his mind, most of them of the strange Captain. 

“Ah. That is how you survived piloting Striker Eureka all on your own,” Mako said, comprehension dawning on her. “But how is this possible – to be immortal?”

“That is a question I ask myself every day, Sweetheart,” the Captain replied, giving the Japanese woman a slightly amused look. 

“What do you mean when you say that he’s more immortal than you?” Raleigh questioned, frowning at Hermann and clearly trying not to show how uncomfortable the bullet hole in the other man’s face made him. 

“Herms heals more slowly,” Newt answered, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could even consider them, turning slightly red at the others’ stares. “Er, that’s the drift speaking. I had no clue about this until just now.” 

He frowned as other images of Hermann flooded his mind, images of him gasping as he woke up on a morgue table, another bullet wound in his chest, and images of him floating, suspended underwater for much longer than should be humanly possible. 

“Who are you?” Marshall Pentecost finally asked, a grim frown on his face. “Both of you.” 

“Captain Jack Harkness, at your service,” Annoyingly Attractive Guy – apparently “Jack” – announced, giving all of them what Newt assumed was his most blinding grin. 

“And you?” Pentecost barked, the look he shot Hermann more than a little cold. 

“Dr. Owen Harper,” Hermann answered finally, a scowl on his face as he pushed himself to his feet, straightening himself up to his full height. 

“And what are the two of you doing in my shatterdome?” the Marshall continued, not satisfied yet. 

“I cannot speak for Jack, but I merely wished to help defeat the Kaiju,” Hermann replied evenly, his voice and posture unwavering. “I believed that I could be of assistance, due to my previous experience with the subject.” 

“Previous experience?” Hercules Hansen questioned, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean by that?”

Newt watched on as Hermann and “Jack” exchanged a meaningful glance, and he tried to call forth any memory of Hermann’s which would explain this. 

“Have any of you heard of an organization called Torchwood?” Jack asked finally, much more serious than he previously had been.

“I heard of it once in passing, but that was years ago. I believe that it was some sort of British secret service program. It was abolished in 2010,” Pentecost answered after a moment of thought. 

“Well, that’s certainly more than I expected you to know,” the Captain replied, raising one eyebrow at the Marshall in consideration. “The first thing you should know, though, is that the Kaiju were not the first alien species to visit, and even invade, the Earth.”

“I think we would have known if – ” Chuck Hansen cut in, frowning, only to be silenced by his father’s hand on his shoulder.

“Let him talk,” Herc instructed, sharp eyes trained on Jack Harkness. 

“Torchwood was an organization founded in 1879 by Queen Victoria to defend England from extraterrestrial attacks,” the man continued, his expression still carefully neutral and his hands clasped behind his back, “and it would have been on the front lines of this crisis if it wasn’t for a series of hostile invasions in the 2000s, leading up to a final confrontation in which all but two operatives were killed.”

“Three, actually,” Hermann muttered, but Harkness didn’t pause in his speech. 

“After Torchwood fell, UNIT, a similar organization sponsored by the UN, attempted to control the Kaiju, but weren’t quite large enough to really contain the invasion,” Harkness said. “The fact that the general public was now aware of an alien presence on Earth only further complicated the process. In the end, they expanded to create the PPDC. Joining seemed like the best option.” 

“Do you have any proof that this is true?” the elder Hansen questioned, still sounding unconvinced, although perhaps a little less defensive than he had been. 

“Got a laptop with you?” the Captain inquired, turning to Marshall Pentecost who nodded slightly but made no move to hand over the slightly beaten up tablet on his desk. 

“You can only use it if you have the correct military codes, and I’m not about to give you mine,” the man replied, also clearly unsatisfied with the stranger’s answers so far. 

“I have my own codes,” Harkness said simply, a hand still outstretched to receive the tablet. “And don’t worry – if they aren’t real codes, they won’t work. I guarantee you they will, though.” 

“Just give him the damn thing,” Hermann grumbled, shuffling over to lean forward on Pentecost’s desk, the now partially dried blood on his face and the gaping bullet hole making him look much more menacing than he – as a disabled, frumpy, mathematician – typically was. “You already know that Torchwood actually existed, so why won’t you let him give you the details?”

Marshall Pentecost examined the mathematician for a few more moments, his gaze intense and more than a little unnerving, and Newt wondered how Hermann was able to withstand it for as long as he had thus far without feeling the need to fidget or babble. Maybe that was just the sort of problem Newt had, though. 

“Fine,” the Marshall answered finally, looking from Hermann back to Captain Jack Harkness and handing over the tablet. 

“There we go. I knew you’d come around,” Harkness replied, that stupidly perfect grin reappearing on his stupidly perfect face. 

He accepted the tablet and punched in a few different codes, navigating the system deftly. Apparently whatever codes he had worked, because soon enough he was handing the tablet back to Marshall Pentecost. Some sort of article was open on it, but Newt wasn’t able to read it very clearly from this distance – all he could make out was a stylized green “T” at the top, probably for this “Torchwood” organization.

“You can also call Dr. Martha Jones if you want to confirm that this information is real, but considering the security firewalls that this stuff is hidden behind, you’ve probably realized that you can take my word on all this,” the Captain continued as Pentecost scanned the document, still frowning, but appearing less and less openly hostile. 

“I don’t think that will be necessary at the moment,” he replied finally as he locked his tablet again, and Newt hoped that Hermann had access to that information because he really wanted to read it now. “The three of you – ” he indicated Newt, Hermann, and the Captain guy, “ – are dismissed for now, although you’re all to stay on base until further notice. And Gottlieb, clean up your – ” he paused for a moment, searching for the right word, “ – _injury_ discreetly, please.”

“Yes, Sir,” Hermann answered, pushing off of Pentecost’s desk and straightening up again, causing his immortal friend to give him an odd look. 

Newt looked at Hermann for a moment and then dragged him out of the crowded office.

\---

“Okay, first of all, how could you have been hunting aliens before I even knew they existed and not tell me?” Newt demanded once they were out in the hallway, waving his hands about and giving Hermann an utterly betrayed look, which wasn’t quite as effective as it could have been, what with his one bloodshot eye and all. 

“There was no need to tell you,” Hermann snapped, limping past him, although the biologist was able to keep up easily anyway. “None of that matters. I’m not Owen Harper anymore.” 

“Dude – No! – But – I mean, I _saw_ you!” Newt sputtered, frowning at the mathematician. “I saw you in your memories and you were _awesome!_ You went about saving people and doing autopsies on aliens and – and just – why would you give that up? If I had that job – ”

“Well I’m not you, now am I?” Hermann retorted, glaring at the man beside him. “Unlike you, I harbor no love for these extraterrestrials. If anything, I despise them, because in case you didn’t notice while you were poking about in my head, they have taken everything I love from me – my fiancé, my friends, my life, even my very humanity.”

“Then why’d you join the PPDC?” Newt asked, also scowling now. “Because if you really hated fighting aliens so much I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have chosen another job involving them.” 

“Newton,” Hermann sighed, finally stopping and turning to look at the other scientist. “I joined the PPDC because I felt it was my duty. I felt a certain sense of responsibility because the rest of the world was floundering about, completely lost. It would have been morally reprehensible for me to stand by.” 

“So that’s all this was to you?” Newt questioned, his voice containing a touch of – what? Disappointment? Sadness?

“All of what?” Hermann asked, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to shift his weight off of his bad leg as he stood there in the hallway. 

“Just – everything! Our work! Us! Whatever this thing between us is!” the biologist exclaimed, waving a hand between them, looking properly hurt now. “Friendship or – I don’t know.” 

“Newton, I – ” Hermann started. 

“Did you drift with me because you felt like it was your _duty?_ ” Newt said, crossing his arms over his own chest, mirroring the mathematician’s posture. “Because it sure as hell didn’t feel like – ”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know my reasons,” Hermann spat, glaring at his partner, a mixture of frustration and embarrassment building inside of him. “You were inside my mind.” 

“I want to hear you say it,” Newt retorted stubbornly, his expression unchanging. 

“Fine – yes! I did drift with you partially for personal reasons,” Hermann admitted, his tone still angry. “And yes, I am… attracted to you.” 

Newt opened his mouth to say something, but the mathematician continued before he could get a word in. Hermann hoped that the biologist would listen to reason, at least this once. 

“Starting something, however, would be a terrible idea,” the taller man stated, his voice sure and unwavering, even though it pained him to say those words. 

“Why?” Newt demanded, stepping closer to Hermann and taking one of his pale hands in his, gaining a certain amount of confidence when the other man didn’t resist. “You like me, I like you. What else matters?” 

“I am immortal. You are not,” Hermann replied, the anger leeching from his voice and sadness replacing it. “I’ve seen more than enough movies to tell you that this will not end well. Jack is only living proof of it.” 

“Come on, Herms,” Newt said, clutching the mathematician’s hand a little tighter. “What’s the point of being immortal if you’re not going to live a little? Plus, you’re stuck with me whether you date me or not.” 

“I – ” Hermann started, pausing for a moment, conflicted.

Newt had a point. His feelings for his colleague had persisted for quite a while now – years even. They certainly didn’t seem to be going away, and Newt’s death would hurt either way. It might hurt more if they embarked on some sort of deeper relationship, but how much more? Jack still had long term, monogamous relationships (such as his one with Ianto) even though he’d been immortal for hundreds of years. Ianto’s death had clearly pained Jack deeply, very, very deeply, but was completely isolating himself really possible? Obviously it hadn’t worked so far. 

“We could… try,” Hermann answered finally, and the grin that appeared on Newt’s face was quite possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

\---

“Hey!” a voice called out, echoing through the dark, empty halls of the Hong Kong shatterdome. “Hey, wait up!”

Jack Harkness sighed and turned around to find the other PPDC scientist – the scruffy tattooed one – jogging to catch up with him, his footsteps practically deafening as they reverberated off the walls of the concrete structure. He thought he’d been discreet in his attempts to sneak out of the building against Marshall Pentecost’s orders, but of course it was just his luck that Owen’s Kaiju obsessed boyfriend had found him. He thought they’d be too busy making up for lost time right now. Owen had gotten his head out of his ass by now, hadn’t he?

“Yeah?” Jack replied, waiting for the other man to catch his breath. 

“Are you leaving already?” Scruffy Scientist asked, shooting Jack a strange look, frowning. 

“I figured it was about that time,” Jack admitted – there was no use in trying to hide his intent. 

“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Hermann?” the other man questioned, folding his arms over his chest. “Because he was pretty pissed that you abandoned him last time.” 

“I left him a note,” Jack said casually, as if this was all just a normal affair for him. “We’ll run into each other again.” 

“You don’t have to leave, you know,” the biologist – he was a biologist, wasn’t he? – replied. 

“You’re not trying to cheat on him already, are you?” Jack asked, a small smirk spreading across his face. “Because as attractive as you are, I don’t really want to piss Owen off any more than I already have.” 

“What? No!” the other man sputtered, turning slightly pink. “I was just thinking that, you know, if the Kaiju aren’t the only aliens out there, then maybe we shouldn’t shut down the PPDC just yet. The higher ups are already starting to disband, but if you talked to them – ”

“That’s not really my thing anymore,” Jack answered, his smirk shrinking a little. “I think that you and Owen are going to have to put that together on your own. If you need any help, though, I’d suggest getting into contact with Dr. Martha Jones. Owen already knows her, and I already gave Pentecost her number.” 

“But – ” the biologist protested. 

“Look, I put my contact information in the note I left for Owen,” Jack interrupted. “I’ll help if you run into a crisis, but I think you guys can handle it.” 

Newt – was that his name? – stared at him for a moment before nodding and smiling slightly. Jack returned the smile before turning his back to the biologist again and heading towards the end of the hallway. However, as he reached the door, he paused for a moment and turned back to the other man. 

“Oh, and one more word of advice,” Jack started, his grin a little mischievous as the scientist looked at him questioningly, “Owen gives great head.” 

He winked and slipped through the door, leaving a bright red biologist in his wake. All in a day’s work. He let out a little huff of laughter before picking a random direction and starting to walk.


End file.
